Subscribe

Archive for the ‘foreign assistance policy’ Category

In case you aren’t already aware dear reader, Sudan is a country in Africa. Within its borders is a region called Sudan, which according to most experts is a terrible vacation spot, due to the rampant disease, lack of food, and constant warfare. The region has received much attention in the media by top name celebrities such as George Clooney, Angelina Jolee, and Bono. It has also been the target of much humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, it seems the aid is getting cut off, which will probably lead to several hundreds if not thousands of deaths.

“But why is the aid going to stop” you may ask yourself. Well, it all has to do with one individual. President Omar al-Bashir.

You see Omar was sitting one day in his beautiful home wondering to himself why anyone would call him a war criminal, and in a moment of serendipity he received a phone call from the Netherlands based International Crimes Court, telling him he had a warrant on his head for supporting a group of warriors to completely wreck Darfur. This made Omar angry! In a rage he fled to his room and wrote about it on his Myspace, then ordered all the organizations aiding the suffering to get out for helping the ICC convict him.*

But wait? Did these organizations help convict the President?

Well, they say they didn’t, but we all know that Doctors without Borders are probably some of the biggest liars on the planet.

So, most of the refugees in Darfur are now in a lot of trouble, as well as a few of the volunteers helping there. You see, recently a group of three westerners were kidnapped by armed guards. President Omar insists that he has nothing to do with it, but his Foreign Minister did mention that the ICC’s ruling would promote “lawlessness”. So, the Sudanese Government DEFINITELY did not have anything to do with it.

Doctors without Borders are a bunch of Liars, and a dictator is the only one telling the truth. I’ll let you be the judge of how much you believe this one.

After viewing this video on Frontline World, I was amazed to find that Italy is one of few countries, if not the only one, that allows the immigration of persons seeking political asylum into the country. In fact, the Italian Coast Guard and several other government agencies put vast amounts of resources (both money and time) into rescuing the people who sail across the Mediterranean from Africa in search of a better life.

While it may seem that the Italians are welcoming these people with open arms, this is not necessarily the case. While every immigrant’s experience is different, some are greeted with nothing more than a “buongiorno” on the street, and have yet to make any Italian friends. Many have found their experiences in Italy to be rather disappointing, very unlike that which they had expected and heard about in their native lands. While I personally find it rather distressing that these people are not more thankful and come off as ungrateful that the Italian Coast Guard would save them and the country would allow them in instead of deporting them, I do feel sympathy for these escapees. The problem that they are now confronted with is that they miss their families, and have no way of returning home (either legally or not).

It was quite interesting to find that many Italians sort of look-the-other-way in regards to these aliens, however, they do not want them to disrupt their fishing and especially tourist industries. If they did so it would almost certainly mean the end of immigration to the small Island of Lampedusa, which relies heavily on these areas as sources of revenue, as natives would almost certainly be up-in-arms over the immigrants’ impact on the “micro-economy” of the island.

It should not go unnoticed though that the Italian government is leading the way in the European Union, as far as allowing immigrants into the country. Most of the other countries within the union will not even hear of allowing aliens in. Italy has proven to be acutely aware of the humanitarian and political crises of the Middle East and Africa that have yielded such massive amounts of refugees. While Italians as a whole may not have, the government has certainly welcomed them with open-arms (providing food, shelter, and in some cases clothing!) and has taken an active participation in embracing these people – the mark of a government acting as a global citizen.